Casualised workforce ‘a concern’ for Gillard

Prime Minister
Julia Gillard
has acknowledged that millions of Australians experience an insecure work life, an issue being raised by the ACTU ahead of next year’s election, but has not committed Labor to act on proposals the trade union movement brings forward.

The ACTU and community groups are seeking to put the issue of insecure work – where workers are employed on a casual or rolling contract basis with little control over their working lives – on the political agenda ahead of next year’s poll.

The ACTU is convening a summit on the issue in Canberra next March, though some business groups have expressed reservations about any push to change laws. An inquiry on insecure work by former deputy prime minister
Brian Howe
was released earlier this year and noted that as many as 40 per cent of the Australian workforce now work in insecure employment arrangements.

The Greens last week introduced a private member’s bill which takes up some of the recommendations of Mr Howe’s report.

But the Australian Industry Group’s
Innes Willox
has described the issue as a bogus one “used by the union movement, the Greens and an array of misguided interest groups and academics to pursue further workplace restrictions on businesses".

Asked in an interview with The Australian Financial Review on Friday whether the government could embrace the ACTU’s push, the Prime Minister acknowledged the campaign.

“At the appropriate point in their own decision-making they will get clearer and clearer about the policy outcomes they are seeking – and Brian Howe has done some work for them – so I can’t comment on how government will ultimately react to policy proposals that come forward," she said.

“But more generally I can say it does worry me that for a large and growing proportion of the Australian workforce that working life doesn’t offer them security when they are sick, that it doesn’t offer them security about what happens when a family member is sick, and that’s a concern to me.

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“It is also an issue that is not easily resolved. Many people want the status of being a casual employee. It suits their lifestyle. But for some I think it has put them in a situation where insecurity is something that they live with and that does concern me," she said.